14 DAY TRIAL // Only a few days ago we were getting so thrilled about a Japanese team of enthusiasts who managed to overclock a Pentium 4 processor and take it up to 5 GHz. Still, that's literally yesterday's news since IBM trashed that record by announcing the Power6 processor, which will be able to run at a maximum 6 GHz, and dismissing the heat and power consumption problem that Intel, AMD and the rest of the gang fears so much. If we were to believe IBM's statements, this little baby will offer twice the speed the competition does, no matter if we're talking AMD, Intel or Sun Microsystems.
The Power6 processor will run between 4GHz and 5GHz and it has been proven to chew away data at a speed of 6GHz in the lab. IBM admitted to having undergone some process technology breakthroughs that have allowed it to raise the GHz bar higher while keeping heat and power consumption issues under control.
IBM obviously takes a step away from the likes of Intel and AMD who get over concerned with heat and consumption issues and have adopted a system of keeping gigahertz down while adding more cores to do the job. IBM see things a little differently and they decided to raise the frequency in both cores of the processor. IBM claims to have made major performance gains by stretching and squeezing silicon and using insulation techniques.